Nibiru
Nibiru was an M-class planet, and the homeworld of the Nibirans, a primitive pre-warp species. While the planet resembled tropical regions of Earth, it possessed red instead of green flora. It was also the home of an unknown species of docile quadruped mammals and large fish. The was sent to survey the planet in 2259, where the crew discovered a volcano was going to erupt and render all life on the planet extinct. Though the Prime Directive forbade interfering in the planet's natural history, Captain decided to save Nibiru and its inhabitants. To avoid revealing themselves to the natives, a disguised Kirk entered the Nibiran settlement and stole their sacred scroll, drawing them into a chase. appeared with a quadruped to ride, but Kirk accidentally stunned it, forcing both of them to flee on foot and dive into the sea. Meanwhile, and rappelled in an environmental suit down into the volcano's magma chamber from a shuttlecraft to stop the eruption with a cold fusion device. From the Enterprise's bridge, Kirk, McCoy, Uhura, and Sulu learned they would not be able to beam Spock out of the magma chamber due to interference from the volcano. Despite Spock's demands to leave him while the device detonated so as to avoid breaking the Prime Directive any further, Kirk opted to lift the Enterprise out of the sea and fly to the volcano to get in range. Spock was beamed out in time, and the detonation flash-froze the magma chamber and rendered the volcano inert. Although the Nibirans saw the Enterprise and began worshiping the starship as a god, Kirk covered up the incident in his captain's log, prompting Spock to write an accurate report. Admiral admonished Kirk on his return to Earth, and informed him the Admiralty were taking the Enterprise from him and sending him back to Starfleet Academy. ( ) Background information Creating the planet Production Designer Scott Chambliss noted that everyone involved in wanted the film to begin on a tropical planet which felt special and different from Earth. http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2013/may/11/star-trek-into-darkness-insiders-guide "The guys had written it as a beautiful island," remembered Chambliss, "and it sounded like Fiji or somewhere like that, quite gorgeous and lush. The one thing that I immediately didn't want to do was go to some place that looked like a great vacation spot and shoot this." ( , p. 67) Bearing in mind that Nibiru was to seem particularly alien, Scott Chambliss thought, "Well, we don't want it be green." http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2013/may/11/star-trek-into-darkness-insiders-guide In retrospect, he continued, "So what are tropical environments other than green? They are lush and green, green, green, green. I thought, 'Let's flip that and go red, red, red, red. Let all the vegetation be red.' That was inspired by one of my favorite plants I see in Hawaii, which is a kind of bamboo." ( , p. 67) This impetus was lipstick bamboo, portions of whose trunks are typically magenta. Said Chambliss, "I took a photograph of timber bamboo, a beautiful jungle of it, and played with it in Photoshop and turned it really deep ruby red." http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2013/may/11/star-trek-into-darkness-insiders-guide He further recalled, "I just started with an assistant messing around in Photoshop, messing around with bamboo forests and inverting the colors so that they become this lush ruby red. In flipping some of the other tones around, they became this mossy golden color. Suddenly, it felt like a tropical world, but was utterly different than what we've seen." ( , p. 67) Chambliss deemed the result "beautiful." http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2013/may/11/star-trek-into-darkness-insiders-guide Director J.J. Abrams scouted Hawaii as a shooting location, but opted not to film the sequence there, as the plants rendered the sequence fake-looking. http://www.fxguide.com/featured/star-trek-into-darkness-vfx-makes-it-so/ "We looked at going to various locations," commented Visual Effects Supervisor Roger Guyett. "At the end of the day, we realized that to really successfully do something like that, we had to build part of the planet." However, budget concerns were raised over the construction of this physical site. "We ended up building a very small piece of forest, literally enough for them and McCoy to get up to speed and run." ( , p. 48) This set was outdoors, contained foliage props as well as part of the volcano, and was constructed in Marina del Rey in California. http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2013/may/11/star-trek-into-darkness-insiders-guide Due to the smallness of the set, much of the views of Nibiru had to be rendered digitally by the film's visual effects team. "Just about every shot of the forest, everything past 25 feet, is us," explained Roger Guyett. "It was a huge endeavor. We even had a little cliff edge that was probably three feet high. Chris Pine and Karl Urban are literally jumping three feet onto a mat. Everything you see over the edge is basically CG." ( , p. 48) Trivia When quizzed for an in-universe reason the Enterprise was hidden underwater, Roberto Orci said a "line of sight was necessary given the unstable and shifting magnetic field of the super volcano on alien planet. That's why no beaming. Gotta physically get back to the ship." Alex Kurtzman came up with the image of the ship rising out of the sea, but they acknowledged fans would find it questionable so they wrote Scotty's line questioning Kirk's decision. The docile animal Kirk shoots is a shaved version of the Drakoulias from , which the filmmakers dubbed the "Niborilla". http://www.fxguide.com/featured/star-trek-into-darkness-vfx-makes-it-so/ The name "Nibiru" is borrowed from ancient Sumerian mythology/history where it is the name of the home planet of the Annunaki, which are the gods of the ancient Sumerians. Nibiru has become a popular topic in recent years as its return to our solar system is anticipated soon, despite any official acknowledgement of its existence. Category:Planets